Marilyn Monroe: The Biography (94 page)

The ease and redundancy of drug availability was partly due to a failure of communication between Greenson and Engelberg, made more difficult by Engelberg’s protracted and painful divorce from his wife, and he was often difficult to locate in late July and early August. Engelberg said later that he was careful to limit Monroe’s supply of Nembutal to one a day, and Greenson claimed that a primary object of his therapy was to break his patient’s drug dependency—but if their statements accurately expressed their protocols, both doctors were failing spectacularly.

That Engelberg’s injections were something more than vitamins is evident from the thirty-two-minute call documented by her General Telephone records. Norman Rosten recalled that during their conversation she was “cheerful, excited . . . high, bubbly, breathless. She seemed high. . . . She raced from one subject to another [with] barely a pause.” But although her tone seemed manic, Marilyn had a lot of news and was clear about her plans: she said she was feeling better than ever, that she would soon be back at work, that her house was nearing completion, that she was getting several film offers. It was, Marilyn said, time for them all to put the past behind them and begin to live before they were too old; no doubt Eunice Murray and Ralph Greenson were in her mind even as she spoke.

Other telephone calls kept Marilyn busy throughout Friday afternoon, as her records document. She spoke with the handyman Ray Tolman at his home in Fullerton, to arrange for him to work at the house early the following week: there was heavy cleaning to do, as well as some important repairs necessary. She then telephoned Elizabeth Courtney and Jean Louis to ask if they could deliver her new dress for a final fitting the next day; but suddenly remembering that would be
Saturday, she corrected herself, said she did not want to interrupt their weekend and added that she could wait until Monday.

In midafternoon, Jule Styne, who was looking forward to composing her songs for
I Love Louisa
, telephoned from New York with another idea. He proposed to Marilyn a film musical version of Betty Smith’s novel
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
, which had been a successful Fox film in 1945. To this idea she responded enthusiastically and added that since she was coming to New York the following week, they could meet in his office. Thus an appointment was fixed for the following Thursday, August 9, at half past two: “She was very excited about the idea,” recalled Jule Styne, “and she would have been wonderful in it. We spoke of [Frank] Sinatra for the other leading role.” Marilyn also agreed to give a long interview for a photoessay accompanying her appearance on the cover of
Esquire
, and there were various social engagements as well. “My husband and I were expecting her to arrive that week,” according to Paula Strasberg, who had begun to purchase theater tickets for her visit.

Arthur Jacobs called to say that their meeting with J. Lee Thompson was scheduled for Monday at five o’clock to discuss
I Love Louisa
. Marilyn was delighted at the rapid progress of this project, too. Her calendar was filling up fast, and as even Eunice had to admit later, there was nothing somber about her attitude: “There was too much to look forward to.” The phone calls were interrupted when Marilyn decided she should dash over to Frank’s Nursery, where she ordered several citrus trees, flowering plants and succulents; delivery was arranged for the following day. Very likely she planned her wedding to be set outdoors, and the garden and pool area needed plantings and color.

Yet Marilyn Monroe was functioning soberly and creatively even after a second meeting with Greenson that Friday afternoon. She called Pat Newcomb, whom she invited to dine out with her. Pat, however, was suffering a bout of bronchitis—to which Marilyn replied, “Why don’t you come out here and stay for the night? You’ll have all the privacy you want, you can sun in the back yard and have all the rest you want.” As Pat said later, “I accepted her invitation. She was in a very good mood, a very happy mood.”

And so the two women dined quietly that Friday evening at a local restaurant, and then returned to Fifth Helena. Eunice Murray had gone to her home for the night, and Marilyn and Pat retired early. Pat slept
soundly in the small second bedroom diagonally opposite Marilyn’s, but Marilyn endured another night of only intermittent sleep.

A few minutes after eight on the morning of Saturday, August 4, Eunice Murray arrived at Fifth Helena for her last day of work, which was to include supervision of the garden plantings. Marilyn wandered into the kitchen at about nine, wrapped in her white terry-cloth robe, and poured herself a glass of grapefruit juice. An hour later, Lawrence Schiller drove up: he had been one of the trio photographing the swimming scene on the set of
Something’s Got to Give
, and he had come to discuss a magazine feature exploiting the pictures; as ever, Marilyn had retained the right to approve or reject photos for American magazines. That morning, according to Schiller, Marilyn was fresh and alert, “seemingly without a care,” and tending a flower bed in front of the house when he arrived. She gave him a tour of her remodeled guest cottage and then marked the photos with a grease pencil, indicating her selection and rejection.

The morning was hardly a dramatic one. Marilyn signed for several deliveries (the bedside table from The Mart, the trees from Frank’s Nursery) and spoke with friends on the telephone. Ralph Roberts called, and they arranged to have a barbecue at Fifth Helena the following evening, after she returned from her second visit to Mama Jean Bello with Sidney Skolsky. It seemed, that sunny summer morning, the crisis with Fox that past season had somehow propelled her to a stage of freedom and a strength of purpose that had been her goal since 1955, when she deserted Hollywood for New York. Never before had her professional prospects been so various or so potentially rewarding, both financially and artistically.

Just before noon, Pat Newcomb arose, only to find her client and friend surly and sarcastic. “Marilyn seemed angry that I had been able to sleep and she hadn’t—but something else was behind it all.” Nevertheless while Marilyn telephoned friends, Eunice prepared lunch for Pat, who remained throughout the afternoon. She lay quietly, sitting under a heat lamp for her bronchitis and taking the sunshine at poolside while Marilyn attended her own business.

Shortly after one o’clock, Ralph Greenson arrived. Except for an interval between three and four-thirty, he remained with Marilyn until
after seven that evening: “He spent most of the day with her,” as Milton Rudin said, based on his later conversations with Greenson. While Marilyn and Greenson retreated to her bedroom for a therapy session, Eunice as usual answered the telephone; there was apparently only one caller—a collect call, from Joe DiMaggio, Jr., then on duty with the Marines in nearby Orange County. Then twenty, he had maintained close ties with Marilyn, as had the Miller children, and scarcely a month passed without their exchanging several phone calls. But because Marilyn was closeted with her doctor, Eunice told Joe that Marilyn was not home. This occurred, as he told the police, at about two o’clock.

At about three, according to Pat Newcomb, Greenson “came out and told me to leave, that he wanted to deal with Marilyn alone. She was upset, and he told Mrs. Murray to take her out for a walk on the beach, in the car. And that’s the last I saw of her.”

With that, Greenson returned home, while Eunice drove Marilyn to Peter Lawford’s home; the housekeeper then went shopping for groceries as Marilyn instructed (so Eunice documented in her memoir) and then returned for Marilyn within an hour.

William Asher, who had directed the presidential gala, was a director in Lawford’s production company and was also a regular at Lawford’s social events, recalled Marilyn’s visit to the beach that afternoon between three and four. “I was there along with a few other people who had dropped by, when Marilyn arrived and took a walk on the beach.” Asher knew Marilyn through his frequent visits to the Lawfords, and through negotiations for yet another prospective new film project then being discussed—a comedy about a train heist to star Marilyn, Lawford, Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. Screenwriter Harry Brown (who had written
Ocean’s Eleven
for the same quartet of men) had completed a treatment for the new project, and Milton Rudin was already negotiating contracts.

But there was a drastic change in the sober manner and clear speech Eunice and Pat had observed in Marilyn that morning. After Greenson’s visit and by the time she arrived at the beach she was drugged, according to Asher—“not staggering, but clearly under the influence, and she wasn’t too steady in the sand.” Whether at Greenson’s suggestion or by her own choice, Marilyn during or after their session had
taken sufficient sedation that her speech was now slurred and her gait wobbly: as her autopsy later revealed, there was a high concentration of sodium pentobarbital (Nembutal) in her liver, for which several hours of accumulation would be required.

There were several reasons for Marilyn to be given or to resort on her own to her habit of taking tranquilizers that day, and they were the same causes of the scratchy humor Pat had seen that morning. Eunice’s final hours in her employment must have made the atmosphere at Fifth Helena awkward, as would the imminent interruption of her therapy necessitated by her marriage and trip to New York. Marilyn was also restless because of her insomnia the previous night; she was eager for Joe’s arrival; and however enthusiastic she was about her many projects, she was as usual nervous and insecure about her participation in any professional activities. Asher remembered that Marilyn watched part of a volleyball game on the beach and then departed at about four o’clock.

At half past four, Joe DiMaggio, Jr., put through a second collect call to Marilyn, and Eunice Murray again told him she was not at home—but this cannot have been true, for by this time Eunice and Marilyn had returned from the beach together. The fact is that, as Greenson mentioned in his August 20 letter to Marianne Kris, he returned to Marilyn at exactly that time to continue what was becoming virtually a day-long therapy session, during which Eunice again answered the telephone. Greenson also wrote to Kris words that reveal most pointedly the extent of his emotional upset and the likelihood that they had at least discussed terminating her therapy: “I was aware that she was somewhat annoyed with me. She often became annoyed when I did not absolutely and wholeheartedly agree [with her]. . . . She was angry with me. I told her we would talk more, that she should call me on Sunday morning. . . .”

At about five, however, Marilyn did take a call from Peter Lawford, who was trying to assemble a few friends for the usual Saturday night casual Mexican supper; he hoped Marilyn would return to the beach to join them—George Durgom, a personal manager of (among others) Lawford and of Jackie Gleason; Lawford’s closest friend, the agent Joe Naar, and his wife, Dolores, and Milton Ebbins and his wife (Patricia Lawford was in Hyannis Port visiting her ailing father). This invitation she declined, but Peter persisted: “Oh, Marilyn, come on
down. You can go back early.” Lawford then said he would call again, hoping she would reconsider.
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But there were two other telephone calls that Marilyn was not able to intercept. The first came from Isadore Miller, to whom Eunice said that Marilyn was dressing and would call him back; Isadore never received a return call. The second call was from Ralph Roberts, at about five-forty or five forty-five, just before he drove to Jurgensen’s in Beverly Hills to purchase the food for their barbecue next evening. “But it was Greenson who picked up the phone,” according to Roberts. “When I asked for Marilyn, he said abruptly, ‘Not here,’ and immediately hung up on me without asking if I wanted to leave a message. Nothing else, just a blunt ‘Not here,’ and he put down the receiver.”

His manner may not have sprung from simple rudeness, however clear was the resentment of Ralph the analyst toward Ralph the friend. At precisely this time, Greenson was expecting a call from Hyman Engelberg, whom he had been trying to reach, and whom he wanted to come and provide Marilyn with medication—most likely an injection to help her sleep, as the internist so often did. Earlier that same day, amid the awkwardness of separating from his wife, Engelberg had received a message through his answering service from Greenson, asking him (as Engelberg’s first wife clearly recalled) to come to Fifth Helena. The internist had refused. Now, just after six, Greenson traced him to his home on St. Ives Drive. To Greenson’s dismay, Engelberg again declined, leaving the psychiatrist to cope alone.

At seven o’clock or seven-fifteen, Greenson claimed, he departed, leaving Marilyn alone with Eunice Murray. And shortly thereafter begins the series of inconsistencies, misrepresentations and outright lies masking the truth of the tragic and unnecessary death of Marilyn Monroe.

First, there is a conflict between Ralph Greenson’s account of Eunice’s remaining with Marilyn, and Eunice’s tale. In
The Last Months
, Eunice’s co-author and sister-in-law Rose Shade wrote that “before he left, [Greenson] asked [Eunice] if she planned to stay over that night,
and she said she did. That was all.” Two weeks after Marilyn’s death, however, Greenson expressly noted in a letter to Marianne Kris, “I asked the housekeeper to stay over night,
which she did not ordinarily do on Saturday nights
.”
⁴
In 1973, Greenson said he made this request because he “didn’t want Marilyn to be alone,” which was curious in light of the fact that by then everyone knew this was to be Eunice’s last day of employment under Marilyn. Things become more ominous still in light of what Eunice told the district attorney in 1982: that “this was the
first time Dr. Greenson had asked Murray
to spend the night at Monroe’s residence,” and that she had no knowledge of Marilyn’s ordinary sleeping habits or attire.
⁵